Underground Water System Discovered on Mars

Scientists Discover Geological Evidence of Underground Water System on Mars

Mars isn’t a cold, dusty planet, according to a
recent discovery by scientists.

There had been previous observations which showed that the planet was once submerged in water that had slowly vanished below the surface. But these new findings published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets shows a piece of first direct evidence pointing to a groundwater system in the planet.

The observations were recorded by the Mars
Orbiter spacecraft controlled from the European Space Agency. The spacecraft
which was officially launched in 2003 and equipped with high-resolution
cameras, was constantly roaming the uninhabited planet and taking pictures of
the Martian surface.

Francesco Salese with fellow researchers from the
University of Utrecht, studied the 24 deep craters in the Northern Hemisphere
of Mars, searching for evidence that water had once flowed there.

Salese noted that Mars in the early ages was a
water world, but due to planetary climate change, the water had resided beneath
the surface, forming pools and groundwater.

From the images, the craters showed a vast
variety of features ranging from terraces created by standing water,
precipitated valleys created by erosion, to the presence of coastal lines.

In 15 of the 24 craters, they discovered evidence
of delta which was formed by slowly moving sludge from water. They also found
geological remains of water activity between 4,000 and 4,800 meters.

The researchers had spent two years examining the
spacecraft’s data before deducing that a 12-mile-wide and a mile-thick
reservoir lies below the ice in an enclosure in the Martian’s south pole. The
researchers could not specify how deep the reservoir was, in order to identify if
it was just a layer of sludge, an underground pool or an aquifer.

While the planet is known for its coldness, the
water reservoir may have been kept from freezing by dissolved salts.

Dmitri Titov, a project scientist with Mars
Express noted that these findings were important and could lead them towards
identifying if regions of the planet that once harboured past life.